US military returns 3 disputed bells taken from Philippines as spoils of war

For over a century, the Bells of Balangiga have not rung in the Philippines, a silence that the president last year called “painful.” Now, the revered bells will once again be heard in the country.

Hundreds of Filipino villagers in 1901, armed with bolos and disguised as women, used one of Balangiga town's church bells to signal the start of a massive attack that wrought one of the bloodiest single-battle losses of American occupation forces in the Philippines.

The U.S. Army brutally retaliated, reportedly killing thousands of villagers, as the Philippine-American War raged.

After the violence, the Americans took three church bells as spoils of war that Filipinos would demand for decades to be handed back.